Advocates for the LGBTQ2S+ communities in Perth County are planning the region’s first Trans Pride Week this November.
Stratford Perth Pride announced the effort Wednesday, putting out a public call for volunteers interested in helping the local organization create events that would help increase awareness, knowledge and acceptance of the area’s transgender community.
“Think Pride Month but trans-focused,” said AJ Adams, the group’s president. “Trans people are more likely to experience hate, discrimination and violence than cisgender people, which is why we need to provide equitable support, awareness and education to and for this community within the LGBTQ2S+ umbrella.”
The local events will coincide with Trans Awareness Week, which takes place Nov. 13 to Nov. 19 and often includes the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, a public memorial for those who have died due to acts of transphobic violence over the past year. Events recognizing Trans Awareness Week are, for now, more common in the United States, Adams said, but that shouldn’t stop Perth County from being a leader in Southwestern Ontario, he added.
“There’s been a lack of knowledge – a lack of acceptance – simply because nothing has existed,” Adams said. “This is really a starting point to get conversations going within Perth County about what does it mean to be trans, and what does it mean to be trans within our rural area.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 57 transgender or gender non-conforming people were fatally shot or killed by other violent means in the US last yeara number many advocates argue is low due to victims being misgendered in police statements and media reports.
Canadian statistics are similarly flawed, Abigail Curlew, a journalist, doctoral researcher and trans feminist, wrote in The Conversation in 2019.
Meanwhile, homophobic attacks and anti-LGBTQ2S+ incidents in Southwestern Ontario were reported frequently this past June — also known as Pride month — in small, rural communities. Pride flags in Tillsonburg were slashed and defaced the same day provincial police from Wellington and Perth counties said they were probing “a rash of mischiefs” in the townships of Mapleton, North Perth and Minto after Pride decorations were destroyed at schools, on streets and at has business.
In nearby London, a well-known trans activist has been the target of online abuse and hate-motivated attacks that culminated with officers raiding her home this week after a false report was called in to police.
Those incidents demonstrate the need for more understanding, Adams said.
“That piece of creating events to create conversation, that’s really the purpose of Stratford Perth Pride, trying to spark those conversations which will lead to a more accepting and welcoming community for everyone, especially those who are LGBTQ2S+,” he said.
Volunteers recruited to the group’s Trans Pride Week committee will help determine the events and programs that will take place in the region this November, Adams said. Anyone interested can find more information at stratfordperthpride.com/transpride.
There are currently no trans people on the Stratford Perth Pride board.
“We really want this to be a community-led event and have voices from the trans community,” Adams said. “This is also one of the ways we are trying to start more engagement with the trans population in the county and, ideally, try to spark some interest through this committee from some trans folks who can hopefully join the board at a later time.”